Energy

DeepWind - North of Scotland Offshore Wind Cluster

Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and Scottish Enterprise (SE) are leading a partnership of industry, academia and the public sector with the aim of developing a new offshore wind supply chain cluster in the North of Scotland.

The cluster is centred on the offshore wind farms in the Moray Firth and those on the Aberdeenshire coast, but the membership will not be limited to just this geography. By adopting a hub and spoke approach the cluster will cover a much wider area taking in sites in Shetland, Orkney, the Western Isles, Kishorn, Caithness and as far south as Machrihanish in Argyll and Hunterston in Ayrshire.
Membership of the cluster will be open to all Scottish based companies.

DeepWind is one of eight clusters formed under the Offshore Wind Sector Deal which, itself, is part of the UK’s Industrial Strategy.

DeepWind will focus on deep water fixed bottom offshore wind technologies and will also act as the lead cluster for floating offshore wind in the UK.

The Cluster aims to raise the productivity and competitiveness of its member companies, both domestically and internationally, become a hub of innovation and collaboration while helping set the skills agenda based on the sectors future requirements out to 2030.

In doing so it will work closely with its sister cluster, Forth and Tay, with the ultimate aim of raising UK content in the future wind farm projects to 60%, a target under the Sector Deal.

The DeepWind Steering Group members, besides HIE and SE, include five major developers EDP Renewables, SSE, Vattenfall, Cobra and Equinor, representatives of the supply chain such as Global Energy Group, CS Wind, Port of Cromarty Firth, Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group and Seaway7. Other public sector entities include Highland, Moray, Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City Councils with academic partners University of the Highlands and Islands and the Institute of Design at Glasgow School of Art.